The Blood Royal(134)

‘You’ve enough on your plate, man, getting yourself off to the liner. I’ve made other arrangements for Wentworth.’





Chapter Thirty-Eight




     Foxton was all smiles. The princess was all smiles. She even leaned forward and pecked at each of Lily’s cheeks in welcome while she held her hands.

‘How simply delightful to see you again, my dear Lily! This is not too late – or too early – to join me in a pot of chocolate? I was just about to indulge … Good.’ She turned to the maid. ‘And we’ll have French macaroons with that, Katy.’

There was a trace of something … roses, Lily thought … in the air. The princess had smelled of nothing more than Pear’s soap when she approached. So, Lily guessed, it was reasonable to suppose that Anna Petrovna had until a moment ago been in the morning room conferring with Princess Ratziatinsky. Her hostess was in receiving mode but at leisure in a purple Circassian kaftan. Lily’s own white linen dress, borrowed at the last minute from her aunt Phyl, would pass muster, she thought. Restrained, unlikely to attract attention.

They chatted of this and that as the maid poured out the chocolate and handed macaroons and shortcake biscuits. When she bobbed and left, the princess’s tone became brisk.

‘So. You come, the commander tells me, equipped with olive branch, white flag … something of that nature?’

Lily laughed. ‘It’s more of a message in a cleft stick.’ She was determined to keep the business light. She had chosen to bring her documents with her in a battered old military messenger’s pouch she had been given by her soldier grandfather. ‘This bag,’ she said with an air of mystery, ‘was once the property of the Royal West Surrey Regiment. It carried the news of the relief of the siege of Ladysmith. It is still doing its bit.’

The princess smiled. ‘Coming to the relief of besieged ladies?’

‘Yes, that. But its main purpose is, as it always was, to serve its country. I know you understand that.’

The princess raised an eyebrow and smiled again. ‘Produce your rabbits,’ she said.

Lily was pleased to have raised both pencilled eyebrows when she handed over the photograph of the Koptyaki grave.

‘But this is …’

‘Given to me by His Royal Highness. And I am delighted to have it. If there’s anything our secret service is good at, it’s spotting secrets and decoding messages. One look at this and the interpretation was clear.’

The princess peered more closely at the picture. On the hook, Lily judged. She launched, in a confiding, excited but carrying voice, into Sandilands’ invention of Romanov survival. She noted that, by the end of her account, the princess was looking pale and disturbed, thin fingers twisting in the pearls at her throat. ‘And all escaped? Is this what your government is thinking?’ she murmured. ‘The painting had not spoken to me.’ She placed the picture on the table at her side, not offering to return it.

Lily dived into the bag again and took out the Californian letter.

‘For Anna? But this has been opened,’ the princess objected, before correcting herself. ‘Ah. Yes, of course … it would have been opened.’

She listened carefully to Lily’s prepared explanation and nodded her understanding. Unfolding the letter itself, she gasped as the lock of hair became visible. Mastering her emotion, she read the letter and read it again. She held it to the light and examined the watermark. With a quivering hand she extracted a slender skein of hairs from the thick lock and wound it round a finger, tears gathering in her eyes. Then she replaced the letter in its envelope. This also came in for scrutiny.

‘We haven’t finished yet,’ said Lily. ‘Here’s a news cutting explaining the letter. Perhaps you saw this? Tatiana has been indiscreet, clearly. Distance from the centre of things leads to lack of concentration. Our consul is aware and taking steps. But in San Francisco she remains for the foreseeable future. Last exhibit: a passage to San Francisco for Anna Petrovna.’

Lily talked on, delivering her rehearsed speeches, reacting to the princess’s sharp questions when they came. She gave information when she could, admitted ignorance where an answer was outside her brief or her invention. And the moment came for her departure.

‘You may keep all these items. Except for the bag I brought them in. My grandfather was badly wounded carrying it between General Buller and Spion Kop,’ she said. ‘I like to think those are his bloodstains. I would not want to lose it.’

The princess shuddered delicately and gestured to Lily to take it back.